Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan's private MySpace photos are all over the Internet now, thanks to a glitch in the bad APIs.
While the not-so-publicity-shy stars probably won't mind, and none of the photos are all that racy (except for the one of a fully dressed, provocatively posed Hilton in a tanning booth), there's a lesson for us all in this social network privacy flap du jour.
"Anything you upload to a public Web site is not private; it's public. Even if you think it is password protected," says Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer at White Hat Security, a Web application security company. "That's the bottom line
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Verizon looking to buy Alltel, again?
The deal, which could be valued at around $27 billion, is at a sensitive stage and could fall through over the next few days, the newspaper reported.
Alltel was sold only last year for $27.5 billion to the buyout arm of Goldman Sachs and private equity firm TPG Capital. And, according to the Journal, the banks that financed the deal, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, still owe about $24 billion in loans and bond financing. But the firms see a sale to Verizon as a way to cut their losses on the financing. The article said a person familiar with the deal said the banks would get a nominal return on their investment.
A takeover of Alltel by Verizon Wireless would create the largest cell phone operator in the country with some 80 million subscribers. AT&T, which is currently the nation's largest cell phone provider, reported at the end of last quarter that it has 71.4 million customers. Verizon Wireless, jointly owned by Verizon Communications and U.K.-based Vodafone Group, would gain customers mainly in the Midwest and South where Alltel operates.
A merged company of this size would no doubt be scrutinized by regulators in the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. And it's likely that Verizon would have to divest some of its assets in markets where the companies overlap. As for any other potential buyers, Sprint Nextel, the other CDMA carrier in the U.S., is in no position to make a big acquisition like this one. The company has seen its subscribers and profits plummet since the failed merger with Nextel in 2005. In fact, some analysts speculate that Sprint Nextel is also on the auction block. The company has already spun off its WiMax division to combine it with Clearwire's network assets. And rumors have floated around that German-based Deutsche Telekom has been eying it, although this seems highly unlikely.
T-Mobile and AT&T are unlikely bidders for the company since they use a different technology called GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications).
Verizon Wireless was among the companies that considered buying Alltel last year when the company first started shopping itself around. And rumors had circulated back in 2005 that Verizon was interested in purchasing the regional cell phone operator. Both times the company didn't make its move.
Alltel was sold only last year for $27.5 billion to the buyout arm of Goldman Sachs and private equity firm TPG Capital. And, according to the Journal, the banks that financed the deal, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, still owe about $24 billion in loans and bond financing. But the firms see a sale to Verizon as a way to cut their losses on the financing. The article said a person familiar with the deal said the banks would get a nominal return on their investment.
A takeover of Alltel by Verizon Wireless would create the largest cell phone operator in the country with some 80 million subscribers. AT&T, which is currently the nation's largest cell phone provider, reported at the end of last quarter that it has 71.4 million customers. Verizon Wireless, jointly owned by Verizon Communications and U.K.-based Vodafone Group, would gain customers mainly in the Midwest and South where Alltel operates.
A merged company of this size would no doubt be scrutinized by regulators in the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. And it's likely that Verizon would have to divest some of its assets in markets where the companies overlap. As for any other potential buyers, Sprint Nextel, the other CDMA carrier in the U.S., is in no position to make a big acquisition like this one. The company has seen its subscribers and profits plummet since the failed merger with Nextel in 2005. In fact, some analysts speculate that Sprint Nextel is also on the auction block. The company has already spun off its WiMax division to combine it with Clearwire's network assets. And rumors have floated around that German-based Deutsche Telekom has been eying it, although this seems highly unlikely.
T-Mobile and AT&T are unlikely bidders for the company since they use a different technology called GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications).
Verizon Wireless was among the companies that considered buying Alltel last year when the company first started shopping itself around. And rumors had circulated back in 2005 that Verizon was interested in purchasing the regional cell phone operator. Both times the company didn't make its move.
South Korea regulators fine Intel $25 million
South Korea's antitrust regulators announced Wednesday that they would fine Intel 26 billion won ($25.4 million) for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the local chip market.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission said in a statement that the chip giant had offered rebates to two PC makers in South Korea in return for not buying processors from rival Advanced Micro Devices. Regulators also ordered Intel to stop offering the rebates.
Bruce Sewell, general counsel for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, criticized the ruling, and told the Well Street Journal that the company is likely to appeal the KFTC's decision. "The conduct they're seeking to attack is the conduct at the heart of competition. It is offering lower prices in order to sell your products," he said.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission said in a statement that the chip giant had offered rebates to two PC makers in South Korea in return for not buying processors from rival Advanced Micro Devices. Regulators also ordered Intel to stop offering the rebates.
Bruce Sewell, general counsel for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel, criticized the ruling, and told the Well Street Journal that the company is likely to appeal the KFTC's decision. "The conduct they're seeking to attack is the conduct at the heart of competition. It is offering lower prices in order to sell your products," he said.
At Google, a search guru's dream comes true
Q&A Search has become central to the functioning of the Internet, but Udi Manber isn't the kind of person who takes that for granted.
"I don't have to tell anybody around here that search is important. That's a very nice luxury to have," said Manber, the Google vice president in charge of search quality.
Search quality may seem like an unassuming element of Google's operations, but in fact it's at the core. Manber oversees the company's search algorithm--all the different inputs Google weighs to judge which Web sites to rank highest in search results.
Manber's work has been highly secret, partly because search is central to Google's competitive advantage and partly because Google doesn't want people gaming the system to get artificially prominent results. How mature is search today on the Internet? Are we 5 percent of the way done with the problem? Ninety percent? My best analogy is that a 15-year-old thinks he's very mature. A 19-year-old thinks he's extremely mature. Every few years you learn that you were not mature before. Search on the Web is about 15 years old, and obviously we were much more mature than we were 5 years ago and 10 years ago and 15 years ago. One way to put it is that it's science fiction every 5 years. What's possible today to me was science fiction 5, or definitely 10 years ago. What was (ordinary) 10 years ago was science fiction 15 years ago. The development is really pretty amazing. It surprised even me. I expect a certain level of progress, and we're actually surpassing it.
"I don't have to tell anybody around here that search is important. That's a very nice luxury to have," said Manber, the Google vice president in charge of search quality.
Search quality may seem like an unassuming element of Google's operations, but in fact it's at the core. Manber oversees the company's search algorithm--all the different inputs Google weighs to judge which Web sites to rank highest in search results.
Manber's work has been highly secret, partly because search is central to Google's competitive advantage and partly because Google doesn't want people gaming the system to get artificially prominent results. How mature is search today on the Internet? Are we 5 percent of the way done with the problem? Ninety percent? My best analogy is that a 15-year-old thinks he's very mature. A 19-year-old thinks he's extremely mature. Every few years you learn that you were not mature before. Search on the Web is about 15 years old, and obviously we were much more mature than we were 5 years ago and 10 years ago and 15 years ago. One way to put it is that it's science fiction every 5 years. What's possible today to me was science fiction 5, or definitely 10 years ago. What was (ordinary) 10 years ago was science fiction 15 years ago. The development is really pretty amazing. It surprised even me. I expect a certain level of progress, and we're actually surpassing it.
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